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We all have tastes, smells, and sights that signal to us that the long-awaited summer is finally here. For me, it’s baseball, lightening bugs, and fireworks. As a child I attended an annual 4th of July picnic, and seeing friends and neighbors, drinking birch beer (from a keg!), and watching fireworks was the sign summer had arrived.

But when I stop and think about the meaning of the 4th of July, I realize the true weight of the holiday. We proudly sing of the “rockets red glare” at the start of every baseball game, but those rockets weren’t fireworks of celebration - they were real mortars, aimed directly at the heart of American freedom.

As my awareness of our global political climate has grown, I’ve realized that while our country and the things it stands for are far from perfect, our democracy is pretty amazing. Our country rose from the ashes of rebellion to build a society that at its core aims to give everyone a chance at life and liberty. The pursuit of happiness is the icing on the cake. Does this always work in practice? Unfortunately, no. But without the red glare of those rockets, we wouldn’t have the freedom to practice our religion, gather together, and speak our mind.

One of my favorite freedoms is the freedom to pursue our passions, and if we’re really lucky, build a career out of those passions. In a perfect world, work is about more than putting food on the table (though I feel blessed every day to be able to provide for my family). Our world is full of real, serious challenges, and work is an opportunity to face those challenges head on and make the world a little better place.

One of our most frequently asked questions is, “So is anyone else on this shorter workday bandwagon?” And the answer is - yes!

There are several modern and historical examples of people who intentionally structured their workday to reflect shorter, more concentrated hours of effective activity. Research shows that our productivity wanes the longer we’re at work, and in our digital age, we end up spending more time managing our work than actually doing it. (How many emails are in your inbox right now? Too many? That’s what we thought!) That’s why a shorter workday that manages to outcomes instead of time clocked makes the most of your brain power and gives you back the valuable time you’re losing to unproductive tasks.

Earlier this month, we talked about how meditation is the first step to reducing distractions. You have to be calm inside your brain to face the onslaught of issues you’ll encounter each day.

But in the spirit of continuing our focus on focus, here's another thought: my morning meditation enables me to be the thermostat, not the thermometer. This was important advice given to me by a friend when I had my second child. She said, “your life is getting increasingly complex, which means there will be unexpected issues all the time. You can decide if they control you, or if you control your reaction to them. I’d recommend you choose to be the thermostat, not the thermometer."

If time is our most valuable resource, and how we spend our time defines who we are, then why do we waste so much of it? And why, in the age of apps and gadgets, does managing our time seem more difficult?

It’s easy to place the blame on the pull of social media, and it’s true that two-thirds of employees spend time on social media at work. But wasted time at work goes beyond surfing the Internet or chatting about your weekend with coworkers.

We’re wasting time when we spend more of our time managing our work than actually doing it.

Our theme this month is Focus. Join us as we explore ways to improve your focus so you can be as effective as possible!

On the blog this month, we’re focusing on focus. It’s the key ingredient to success for any individual or organization: your ability to pay attention to the most important things and block out the seemingly endless distractions.

If I have learned anything in life, it is to learn from other people’s experience. Life is too short to figure everything out on my own. So when I hear people I admire talking about the importance of their spiritual health, meditation, or gratitude practices, I listen. And when I recognize that so many of them point to just that practice as being the most important ingredient of their success, I really listen.

Offices are known targets of jokes and criticism (why do you think Dilbert, Office Space, and The Office are so funny? They resonate with our experiences of pointless reports, unnecessary overwork, and oddball colleagues).

So most people think: if you want something to be different, you have to leave an office job and become a free agent or go start your own organization. There’s no way you can update an existing bureaucratic behemoth to be more nimble, to adjust to the knowledge economy, to be anything other than Dilbert in real life.

Similarly, many people would also say that you should just build a new house if you want to cut your Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions to zero - reworking the one you already live in just won’t work.

Once upon a time (though really not that long ago), MatchPace almost became “The Pareto Group.” We were so inspired by the Pareto Principle that we nearly named our company after it!

I was brainstorming names for the company with my husband, and he said “it’s like the Pareto Principle!”

If you are like me, and not my economically-minded husband, you might be asking “But what is the Pareto Principle?” I was not familiar with Vilfredo Pareto, the Italian economist Joseph Juran named the Pareto Principle after. But you may have heard of the “80/20 rule.” Back in the late 1800s, Pareto observed that 80 percent of Italy’s land was owned by just 20 percent of the population; he then took the principle a step further, noting that about 20 percent of the peapods in his garden produced 80 percent of the peas.

In the classic film Chariots of Fire, Eric Lidell says “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

Too many people dread waking up and heading to work on Monday morning. At MatchPace, we believe work is more than a way to pay the bills - it also gives purpose and meaning to our lives and provides a way to contribute to building a better, healthier society.

Most of us spend thousands of hours at work each year, making our contribution in the marketplace. We can think of these hours as the daily grind, glancing at the clock and counting the days until the weekend. Or, we can view our working hours as a way to contribute to improving the world around us: using ethical business practices, managing well, providing goods and services that improve lives, stewarding our planet’s resources well, furthering justice, and providing for our families and communities. Often, furthering the ability of employees and employers alike to contribute in this way means moving beyond the 9-5 and rethinking the pace at which we work, all while maintaining the highest levels of productivity, quality, and effectiveness.